Memories Bittersweet
by Tonga
Summary: Harry has a dream... or is it a dream? A songfic set to 'When You Come Back to Me Again'.. not as good as 'My Father's House' IMO... RR!


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Ah, another angst filled songfic… I've come to the decision that if I ever write one of these and it's happy there is something wrong with me…

Anywho! The characters do not belong to me! They belong to the great, wonderful goddess JK Rowling… not humble little me… and the song is from the movie 'Frequency' and sung by Garth Brooks… it's a really pretty song…

As always review!!! (Or I'll sick a various plot device monster on ya! I hear Al's selling one off… ;-) 

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Muchas gracias to my wonderful beta-readers, Becca and Louise!!  
  


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Memories Bittersweet 

**__**

There's a ship out   
  
On the ocean   
  
At the mercy of the sea   
  
It's been tossed about lost and broken   
  
Wandering aimlessly   
  
And God, somehow you know that ship is me 

Harry Potter sat in his room at number four, Privet Drive. It was the start of another soon to be miserable summer with the Dursley's, his only, unfortunately, living relatives. He always hated coming back here after his terms at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and truth be known he was secretly praying that Prof. Dumbledore would give Mr. and Mrs. Weasley permission to come and take him away from his horrible relatives soon.

He opened the parcel that had been sitting in his lap since his owl, Hedwig, had delivered it, which had been at least a good twenty minutes. It did not have a return address, which led Harry to believe it to be from his godfather- whom Harry would live with, if not for a horrid mess that his godfather was in with the magical community.

Harry swallowed back the bitterness rising in his chest. Inside the parcel was a note, which Harry opened first, and an oddly shaped wrapped lump. 

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Harry-

I wanted to send this to you. It's something that I found while running errands for Dumbledore. Enclosed is a package of photos from the school days of your mum and dad- although there are quite a few of the Marauder's as well, we just won't be left out of anything.

Hope this letter finds you in good spirits. I'll see you soon.

Sirius 

Harry tore the white paper off of the lumpy package, revealing a stack of various sized photos bound up with twine. He pulled out his knife and cut the string from them, setting the pictures loose on his bed. He ran a hand over them, spreading them out to have a better look. Some were the normal muggle photographs like the Dursley's had, the others were his favorites, wizarding photos.

From many of the pictures young boys and girls waved to him, smiling. It wasn't hard to pick out his father, he had to be the boy with the tussled hair who looked like Harry in an uncanny way. His mother was just as easy, seeing as she was the only girl with green eyes and dark red hair. The other two girls he saw had black hair and a light reddish blonde color.

He picked up a photo at random, one of the four Marauders. Already knowing which was his father he set to figure out which boy was Sirius, which was Remus, and which was Peter. It was almost too easy. Sirius had to be the dark headed one beside his father. Both of them in a fit of laughter over something, clutching their sides. Remus had to be the rather good-natured looking boy on his father's other side, with brownish hair and a tired statement. The only person the chubby boy with a mop of brown hair, who was none other than Peter. He looked happy, and seemed to be grinning amiably with the others.

Harry stood on his knees beside his bed, hoping that his Aunt Petunia didn't come for him. He was surprisingly grateful for this moment alone with his pictures.

As he stared at the people in his pictures, he wondered what they were feeling and who they were really were like. He was overcome with heartache. Harry so very badly wanted what they had had. Sure…he had his friends, Ron and Hermione were the best to him. And there was Hagrid, the gamekeeper at Hogwarts. But what he really wanted was the life that had been taken so unfairly from him- a real home, with a real family.

At this moment he felt more lost than he ever had, like he wasn't in control of anything that happened in his life anymore. He blinked heavily, keeping back the tears that threatened to silently spill. The past year had been so terribly hard on him, and everyone else. 

**__**

There's a lighthouse in a harbor shining faithfully   
  
Pouring its light out across the water   
  
For this sinking soul to see   
  
That someone out there still believes in me 

"Harry!" his aunt shrieked from the bottom of the staircase, "Get down here this minute, boy!"

Harry swept the photos off his bed and into a shoebox quickly. Hearing his aunt clomp up the stairs, he hid them under the loose floorboard. The pictures were locked away just in time too, because Aunt Petunia opened the door to the room just as he sat back on his bed.

"Do you not hear me boy! I said for you to come!"

Harry hung his head, not really having the energy to fight anymore. He followed her out of his room and down the stairs to the kitchen.

"I need you to go out to the garden and get a head of lettuce, some tomatoes, maybe a carrot or two, and," she paused a moment, biting her lip, "I think that will be all, go! Don't just stand there like a deaf man! Go!"

Harry quickly left the kitchens and went outdoors, thinking about his photos, hidden safely away upstairs. He bet him mum never had to do this, and he would bet even his awful aunt wasn't even given this tedious chore. He liked to think of his grandparents as kind-hearted people who wanted to give their children everything, and their grandchildren too.

He stepped out into the back yard. The sun was bearing down on him, and he felt especially sweaty in the oversized clothes he was given to wear second hand. His cousin, Dudley, had tremendously failed his diet from the previous summer. Dudley had actually managed to gain even more weight…which had seemed physically impossible until it had been completed. Brushing these thoughts aside, Harry tried to focus on his task at hand.

Harry stopped beside the rows of lettuce and bent to pluck one from the ground. It wasn't too difficult, after all, he'd been doing this since he could walk. Next, he pulled a couple of carrots from the soil and gently rolled two bright red, plump tomatoes off the vine. Holding them carefully in his arms he made his way back to the kitchen to rinse them off.

Carefully balancing the produce in one arm he wiped his forehead with a sleeve and opened the door. His aunt was standing over the stove, something sizzled and sent a wonderful aroma throughout the house. She glared at him as he entered and placed the fruits of the garden in the sink. He turned on the tap and began to clean them, not meeting her eye.

"Not too hard with the tomatoes, you don't want to bruise them," she reprimanded quietly, almost sounding as if she were helping him rather than badgering him.

Harry nodded and pat them dry with a cloth. He turned to go back upstairs, unaware that his aunt followed him to the staircase and watched as he returned to his room, head hung, with a worried look painted on her normally unconcerned face.

"Ah, Lily," Petunia whispered when at last Harry's door was closed, "Whatever am I supposed to do with him?" 

**__**

On a prayer   
  
In a song   
  
I hear your voice and it keeps me hanging on   
  
Ahhh, raining down against the wind   
  
I'm reaching out 'til we reach the circle's end   
  
When you come back to me again

There's a moment   
  
we all come to   
  
in our own time and our own space   
  
Where all that we've done   
  
we can undo   
  
if our heart's in the right place 

Harry lay down on his bed, not having a care in the world save his own loneliness and sorrow. He lay there, staring at the ceiling, questioning himself, his life, the overall fairness of the world, and wondering how anyone could be so cruel as to take away an infant's family.

He received no answers, yet somehow he felt better just laying there, wondering his 'what ifs'. He didn't go down when his uncle called him for supper, and was surprised that no one came after him. He lay in his bed, listening to what family he had downstairs, scraping plates and making what passed for conversation with them, until dreariness overtook him and his eyes feel closed.

He was almost aware of the fact that he was asleep, but not quite. He opened his eyes to look up and saw two youthful faces, one with a tangle of black hair and another with a halo of dark red.

"Mum?" he asked, sitting up, "Dad?"

The two figures nodded, sitting on the edge of his bed. The smiled at him and each took one of his hands. Harry cast a sideways look at them, wondering if he was dreaming. Who could have the heart to mock him like this, to bring back his parents to him. Harry's parents were the one thing he longed for, and he couldn't help but wonder if he was in a hallucination or if this was a gift. Deciding on the latter, Harry smiled at them. He felt his heart fill with happiness, bittersweet happiness, but happiness all the same.

The two figures looked across at one another, as if holding a conversation that Harry could not hear. He looked expectantly at them, and then his father spoke.

"Harry," James said, "Your Mum and I both know how much you have dwelled on the past before, and you know as well as we do that the past will never change. However, there are pieces of the past that can be uncovered."

Harry looked confused, he was about to say so when Lily spoke.

"It isn't right for you to dwell on these things, but we are willing to give you the memories of your early childhood if it would in any way help you, but you mustn't dwell on them. The past is just that, and no amount of wishful thinking can change it," Lily said, her voice was strong and offered no room for debate.

"Awfully sorry you ended up here," James said with a grimace, "Vernon and Petunia aren't exactly our kind of people, you should have been with Sirius, but under the circumstances…"

"Enough James," Lily said, then turned to Harry, "Love, we will always be with you, nothing can ever take us away, not even Voldemort. Even if you can't always see us, we're right there." Lily didn't flinch in the slightest when she said the Dark Lord's name. Then she continued.

She reached out and placed her hand over his heart, Harry brought his hand over hers, tears falling down his face. It felt like losing them all over again.

"Now, close your eyes," Lily said, tears coming from her eyes as well, "And remember." 

**__**

On a prayer   
  
In a song   
  
I hear your voice and it keeps me hanging on   
  
Ahhh, raining down against the wind   
  
I'm reaching out till' we reach the circle's end   
  
When you come back to me again

And again I see my yesterdays in front of me   
  
Unfolding like a mystery   
  
You're changing all that is and used to be 

Feeling slightly silly, Harry closed his eyes. The feeling that the presence of his parents had brought him disappeared and it was all Harry could do not to open his eyes, lest he see them gone again.

"We're always here, Harry," his mother's voice said, "Nothing can take us away."

Feeling as if in a hailstorm, Harry screwed his eyes shut tight, only to open them again upon hearing strange voices in his room.

Only he wasn't in his room.

Harry looked around. He was standing in a kitchen, much like Aunt Petunia's, but smaller. There was a woman on the ground, under the dining table, and seconds later a small boy scurried out from the other side to sit on the floor. The woman straightened up and stood looking at the baby. Harry felt his breath catch in his throat, that woman.

"Lil?" someone called.

Harry spun around, almost colliding with James Potter as he did so. But James wasn't paying him any mind, nor, it seemed was Lily.

"What are you two doing?" James asked.

"We," Lily said, looking at the baby, "Seem to be playing a very unfair game of 'catch me if you can'."

"Well," James said looking a bit interested, "I hate to break it up so soon, but our guests will be here soon."

"Here," Lily walked over, catching the baby in a moment of reverie, and picked him up, "You can change Harry. I've laid out his clothes in his room, just put them on him."

Harry stared at the fidgeting bundle in James arms. Was that him?

"Alright," James said, taking his squirming son, "I think I can handle that."

"Good," Lily said, "Because if I don't start the now dinner it won't be ready to eat."

"Wouldn't want that," James said as he and Harry headed towards the staircase.

Lily went back to the stove and stirred the contents of a saucepan with her wand. There was a clatter upstairs, James voice filtered through the ceiling, Lily chuckled in amusement. Harry stood watching her, he couldn't bear to turn away. A buzzer sounded, causing Lily to come after the ham in the oven, it smelled wonderful. She had just taken it from the oven when the front door was pounded upon. James clomped around upstairs.

"Come in!" he cried down the stairs, "It's open!"

The scene swirled, colors blended together only to push against each other once more into another scene.

He was standing in a small shop in Diagon Alley. James and Lily were standing just ahead of him, baby Harry clutched in Lily's arms. The two were talking to someone that Harry couldn't see, and couldn't hear. He tried to get around, see who his parents were talking to, and to hear was they were saying. This memory didn't last as long as the last one, and soon the colors melded together again, leaving Harry to wonder what that memory was about.

He didn't have long to think, though. The colors turned again and he was standing in a street. It was a dark, starry night, and he could make out some people just ahead and moved towards them.

"Sirius?" someone called ahead. Dad, Harry thought.

"Don't come any closer," Sirius warned pulling a hysterical girl along with him. "It's too late."

"NO!" the girl screamed, "NO! She's hurt, we've got to help her, she's hurt!"

Sirius picked the crying girl up and walked to where James and Lily stood. Harry ran up to them, trying to figure out what was going on. Whatever it was, it didn't sound good. Lily was pale, and looked like she was going to be sick. James was flushed, and was leaning heavily against Sirius' motorbike.

"She's gone?" James asked cautiously.

Sirius nodded as best he could. The girl had given up struggling and her face was now hidden in his neck, her arms wrapped around him. She kept muttering something that no one seemed to hear, though Harry did. Cats and rats, something about cats and rats. It made him think of Peter…Wormtail.

Lily fell to the ground. She sat there looking past Sirius' knees to where a man knelt beside a body, she looked as if she were going to be violently ill. James put his hand on her shoulder.

"Where's Remus?" Lily asked.

"Not here yet," Sirius muttered.

"I'll go wait for him," James said.

"Cats," the girl said, "Cats."

"What?" Sirius said looking at her.

"The cats," the girl muttered, the side of her head was leaned against his shoulder and her eyes were closed. Tears still fell down her face.

"What's she on about?" Sirius asked.

"I have no idea," Lily said standing carefully, looking slightly off balance, "She's worn herself out, why don't you let me take her back home, while you stay here with James and Remus."

The scene blurred again… Harry didn't entirely understand this last memory. It didn't seem to be one of his childhood memories at all. He opened his eyes to see that he was again in his room at number four, Privet Drive. He sighed and lay back down, hoping for another dream about his parents. 

**__**

On a prayer   
  
In a song   
  
I hear your voice and it keeps me hanging on   
  
Ahhh, raining down against the wind   
  
I'm reaching out till' we reach the circle's end   
  
When you come back to me again 

"Harry…"

He didn't want to open his eyes, he wanted to stay in sweet unawareness, not hearing or knowing anything, and most certainly not remembering.

"Harry, please wake up."

He opened his eyes against his better judgement to see his mother standing beside his bed. Was it another hallucination? He sat up quickly and pulled on his glasses, but before he could mutter a word his mother had held her hand out to silence him.

"The dreams you had were memories that your father and I gave you for various reasons," Lily said, "The first memory was of your first Christmas. A happy childhood memory that we felt that you should have. The second was a memory that your father had of meeting with Peter in Diagon Alley when you were just a tiny baby. You cried during that meeting, but were quiet as soon as we had left Wormtail."

"What about the third?" Harry asked as Lily took a breath.

Lily's eyes seemed to mist over, "That was so you would know that we all lose sometimes. It was one of my own memories, from the night one of my best friends was murdered by Voldemort."

"That girl," Harry said, "The one that talked about cats?"

Lily nodded, not understanding where Harry was going.

"She was talking about Wormtail."

Lily nodded, "You are probably right, we didn't understand it then."

The two sat in silence for a moment, looking at each other as if that was all that existed. Lily finally broke the silence.

"I have to go back," she said.

"Please," Harry said, pleading. His eyes became moist, and he felt that familiar lump in his throat. He didn't want to start to cry. "Don't go." After all, a hallucination is better than nothing.

"I have to," Lily said, "But remember what I told you."

"What's that?"

"We will always be with you, nothing can ever take us away. Even if you can't always see us, we're right there."

Harry smiled up at her as her form began to fade. Her face the last thing to fade from his vision.

**__**

"Remember, we are always there, no matter if you can't see us."

Did you laugh? Did you cry? Did it make you sick? Was it good? Was it bad? Does it need more work? The authoress wants to know these things! If she knows them then her fics can become better and better! So what does that mean, you ask? See that little box down there? Make a comment in it and I'll see it! Thanks and review!!


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